Mako's Grandchildren
by Michelle the Editor
Summary: A glimpse at the not-too-distant future of 2043, when mermaids have been exposed and accepted for decades, through the eyes of a Sea World employee, a few brand-new mermaids, and others. Formerly titled "Mermaid Shows at Eleven."
1. Chapter 1: Morgan Riley

Disclaimer: I do not own H2O, its mythology or its characters.

* * *

"…And if you miss any glitches, or cause new ones, the cost of repairing them will be docked from your pay, understood?" Ms. Benjamin said. The fifty-some woman never paused, heels clicking as she walked briskly towards the pirate ship exhibit. The waterpark was empty, in that it was early morning on a school day.

Even though it was sunny, the spring air was nippy. The lanky teenager beside her nodded, trying to make the goosebumps on his arms fade with sheer willpower.

"Yes ma'am," he replied. Ignoring the "Closed For Repairs—Keep Off" sign, they headed up the gangplank. The wood worn smooth by thousands of feet, creaked under his shoes. He slipped a little before catching the railing. Bars nailed across the gangplank kept his feet steady. Clutching the railing, he avoided looking at the dark water below.

"Right."

Stopping at the base of the mast, she flipped a switch, opening a keypad. She typed in the command code, and a larger panel slid upwards, revealing an array of blinking, bleeping technology. The teen stifled his excitement and tried to look professional. Ms. Benjamin gave him a tight-lipped smile. "Don't mess up, Morgan. I think you have a lot of potential, but I can't afford mistakes."

"I won't." Morgan drew himself up to meet her gaze. "Thank you."

"Get on with it." Ms. Benjamin headed away, off to check on something else in the water park. With a sigh, Morgan ran a hand through his brown hair and turned on the computer.

Up on the ship's deck, he could see the show arena with its fake rock formations, and the adjoining practice pools. There were already several mermaids there, practicing tricks and routines with their trainers. Just looking at them in that cold water made Morgan shiver.

Turning back to the mast's touch screen, he set up a practice run, attempting to try and isolate the problems. He could hear faint shouts and splashes from the mermaid pools and glanced over as the program loaded. His gaze shot straight to one mermaid in particular, a dark-skinned girl about his age. The coppery scales of her tail were streaked with green, which he assumed was probably dye. She sat on the fake rocks, watching as one of the senior mermaids performed a midair backflip.

The computer beeped, and Morgan realized he'd been staring. Hastily, he turned back to his work. The program was loaded; a holographic pirate captain appeared on the deck behind him, waving a cutlass. His bellowing was garbled and full of skips, and his image flickered. Morgan stopped the run and set the program aside to fix.

As other pirates began going through their routines, Morgan's attention drifted back to the mermaids. The three senior women were all moving in synchronization now, leaping, twisting and even walking on tiptail across the water like trained dolphins. In the adjoining pools, the newer girls worked on simpler tricks. The one Morgan had noticed was very good at jumpsmaking them look effortless, arching her body as she swooped down in a dive. Her trainer, a graying man distinctly older than any of the others, seemed pleased by her progress. Morgan wondered if she'd get to perform in Saturday's show. Noticing one holo-pirate's nose hovering where his chin should be, he got back to work.

Trying to fix more deformed pirates kept Morgan busy, and he soon forgot all about the mermaids and the cold. This wasn't so hard, he thought. If he could fix this program, maybe Ms. Benjamin would be interested in the new program he was just putting through final tests. If that worked out, maybe he'd get promoted to something better than scrubbing out slimy tanks and feeding chunks of raw fish to the dolphins. Not that he didn't like dolphins—though he swore Nellie had it in for him personally—but it was grunt work.

As he finished, Morgan checked the time, and was startled to see that he had been here for over an hour. He stood and stretched, wincing at the kinks in his legs. There were a few people wandering around the park now, mostly retirees. Most of the mermaids and trainers were taking a break out of the water, the former back in human form. The three substitutes chattered excitedly together.

"Morgan?" Ms. Benjamin's voice made him jump. He whirled around to see his boss standing at the top of the gangplank. "Finished yet?"

"A-almost. I'm running a final diagnostic to make sure I didn't miss anything," Morgan replied.

"Right. As soon as you're finished, go get Mr. Wilson to check it over, then go find Justin and get to work on your real job. Remember, I don't want any mistakes."

"There won't be any," Morgan replied, sounding more confident than he felt. Ms. Benjamin left without another word. Once he was sure she was gone, Morgan let out a huge sigh and got back to work. As he set up the final run-through, he heard footsteps, and glanced around to see the old trainer coming up the gangplank.

He gave Morgan a friendly wave. "How's it coming?"

Morgan shrugged. "Good, I think." The older man strolled over to him. Leaning against the railing, he glanced around as holographic pirates began blustering across the deck.

"Don't be too scared of my sister. She's like that to everybody," the trainer said. Morgan gave him a startled look, receiving a grin in return. "Yes, you heard that right." He stood and held out a hand. "Will Benjamin, Senior Mermaid Trainer."

"Morgan Riley," Morgan replied, shaking his calloused, tanned hand. "And thanks."

"No problem. Sorry if we were distracting you." He gave Morgan a knowing smile, and watched as the teen's ears turned pink.

"The new girls are really good," Morgan said, focusing on the pirates. They all looked normal now, thankfully. "I can see why they got through the tryouts."

"Have you considered introducing yourself to her?"

Morgan picked at a bit of thread on his shirt. "Maybe. She hasn't been here very long."

What was her name again? He'd seen all of the new girls on a poster or something; they all had really bizarre names like Aurora Pearl or Destiny Whitefoam or something…

"Which is why she needs a friend to show her around. I can introduce you."

Morgan shrugged uncomfortably.

Will straightened, and continued in a casual tone. "It'll make you look like less of a creeper when you watch her. She said so herself."

Morgan flushed beet red. This was an old ship. Couldn't the boards break and drop him through the floor right now? Though, he admitted to himself, that might kind of hurt. There was always the plank . . . the fact that he couldn't swim didn't seem that important to him right then.

"I-if I get a chance today…" Morgan mumbled something about Ms. Benjamin and job and pay. The program finished, and Morgan began closing it down. It was as ready as he thought he could get it.

Will chuckled. "You won't get anywhere if you don't even try. Trust me." Morgan mumbled, coughed, and shut the mast panel.

As he started for the gangplank, he remembered and spun around. "Emeraldia's her name, right?"

"Yes—but don't call her that, she hates it."

"I can imagine," Morgan replied, shaking his head. "Why do they come up with such insane stage names?"

Will shook his head. "Worse than that. It's her real name."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

About halfway down the ramp, Morgan happened to glance around, and saw Emeraldia in human form, standing at the railing a few meters away. He saw that she was watching him and, when they locked eyes, she waved. The grin on her face seemed almost mischievous. Awkwardly, Morgan waved back.

As he took another step, his foot slipped. Before Morgan even realized he was falling, he'd slammed sideways into the gangplank. His head hit the wood with a thunk, and everything went fuzzy. Vaguely, he first felt himself falling, followed by a shock as he hit cold water. He tried to swim, but his limbs were too heavy to move. Bubbles exploded out of his mouth, and he choked.

Everything that happened after that was a blur of blue and black and brown and copper and dull roaring in his ears, and pounding pain in his head, and flowing blood in his mouth and tickling of the white bubbles.

The next thing Morgan knew he was kneeling on concrete, doubled over like a soggy noodle as he coughed up water. A pair of hard arms wrapped around his stomach, both fists pressed into his gut. All around him panicking people shouted, which made his headache feel worse. He finally stopped coughing and panted. He could taste chlorine. A hand touched his face, drawing his eyes up to look directly at Emeraldia. She'd transformed back into a mermaid and was soaking wet, her tail dangling into the pirate ship tank.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Morgan tried to say yes, but all that he could manage was a groan.

Will spoke up from directly behind Morgan. "He'll live, though he might have a concussion."

Morgan flopped back against his chest. A white blur ran up to them, crouched down, and began prodding Morgan's head. A gash along his temple stung, and he bit back another groan. Trying to ignore the pain, he looked past the blur at Emeraldia.

"Thanks," he said, slurring a little. "Can't swim."

"You can't swim?" Her eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

"No." Morgan smiled sheepishly, but then someone dabbed a burning goop on the cut on his forehead, and he flinched. "Ow!"

"Hold still," the white blur—a nurse?—said.

She put a firm hand on his head to keep him from moving around as she cleaned the cut. Then she pinched the wound shut and reached back for something in her kit. Her fingers felt cold and plasticky from the spray-on gloves.

"And you work at Sea World?" Emeraldia continued. "Surrounded by water?"

"Yes." The nurse wielded something that looked like a gun, and was dabbing on some kind of gluey liquid bandage.

Emeraldia shook her head and heaved her tail the rest of the way out of the water. "We'll have to do something about that. Tell you what, when you're feeling better I'll meet you after hours at the waterslide pool and give you lessons. Okay?"

"Mmmkay."

Emeraldia nodded, scooting back to give the nurse room. Will let go, and Morgan managed to stay upright. It took him a minute to realize that he'd just been asked out.

He remembered what Will had said earlier. "Wha' do I call you?"

"What? Oh, Em's fine. You're Morgan, right?"

"Right."

Someone shouted, and Em looked up. It sounded like another girl.

Em bit her lip and looked back at Morgan. "I need to go."

"That's fine," Morgan replied, waving a hand.

Giving him a smile, Em dropped with a splash back into the pirate ship tank. Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw her swimming back towards the other pools. He tried to turn his head, but the nurse held him still.

"Almost done," she said, adding something about instructions on not messing up the bandage. Morgan wasn't listening; he was just grinning like an idiot. The nurse would have to tell his parents when they got here to pick him up anyway.

Em leaped over a partition between pools with a splash.

* * *

This was written as part of a school assignment for my Writing for Children and Adolescents course, and is intended as a oneshot, to celebrate winning NaNoWriMo yesterday.

Also, the mermaid names were obtained from a name generator, on Rum and Monkey I believe, in order to make them convincingly silly.


	2. Chapter 2: Emeraldia Bluefoam Sun

Disclaimer: I don't own H2O.

A/N: As a non-FF dot net reader of mine pointed out, the old title wasn't a very good one, doesn't say much about the story itself. I've been messing around with some different ones; 21st-Century Mermaid, 2043: Year of the Mermaid, Tales from 2043, Mermaids and Holograms, and so on in that vein.

If any of those sound good to you guys, or you have ideas of your own, I'd love to hear it. I thought this might be a better way to tell you that this change is coming, get a little feedback.

* * *

Morgan and Em were halfway across the pool at the bottom of the waterslide. Twilight painted the clouds gold, and the water was still warm. So far, Morgan had learned enough to not drown at work, though his swimming was still splashy and spastic. Abruptly, he snorted and started spluttering. Em caught him by the arm, and he wiped his face, wheezing.

"Ow," he coughed, a little pink in the face. "Can we take a break?"

"Sure."

Reaching for the side of the pool, Morgan climbed out and sat on the edge, legs dangling into the water. He pulled off his goggles, which left red marks around his eyes, and swiped his dripping brown hair out of his face. Em pulled herself up beside him.

"How did you rescue me like that?" Morgan asked, wiping his face. "Yesterday, I mean."

"I've been getting rescue training on the side from Will."

Morgan looked intrigued. "Really? Why?"

"That's what I want to do." Em brushed a strand of dark, wet hair over one ear.

"Then why aren't you in rescue mer training?"

Em looked down at the clear, rippling pool water. She flicked it with her tail. Somewhere nearby a bird, probably a pelican, started squawking.

"They turned me down. I only tried out for this because I thought I could get experience—and I only got this job because they found out at the last minute that the other girl bribed her way in."

"Em!" A female voice called, and the two looked up. A blonde built like an Olympic swimmer—Azure, one of the other two mermaids-in-training—marched up to the edge of the pool. "Where have you been? Practice ended hours ago!"

Morgan looked as alarmed as if he was the one in trouble. On the other hand, Em rolled her eyes.

"We practiced plenty this morning. I didn't see why I needed to come back for more somersaults."

"Emeraldia Bluefoam Sun," Azure said, leaning on the railing, "I've seen your somersaults, and a little more practice wouldn't hurt."

Em threw up her hands. "Fine! I'll be there."

"You'd better be."

Em turned her back. As Azure walked away, a wicked idea popped into Em's head. Raising her right hand, palm upwards, fingers splayed, she focused on the pool water. Instead of dousing Azure, the snake of liquid twisted and flopped back into the pool with a splash. Em slapped the water with her tail, exasperated. She needed to work on her powers: anything bigger than her fist pretty much did its own thing.

"What was that?" Azure demanded, looking back.

Em grinned brightly. "Practicing?"

Rolling her eyes, Azure walked away.

Morgan turned to Em, looking apologetic. "I'm really sorry; I didn't know you guys had a practice tonight."

"I'd have told you if I cared. What time is it?" Em asked.

You ditched them?"

"Yeah, but nothing we can do about it, tell me what time it is."

Getting up, Morgan dug through his bag and came up with a digital watch. "Almost eight. I'm going to have to go home soon."

"Fair enough." Em pulled herself out of the water, dripping, and scooted towards her things.

"You're going to be here tomorrow morning?"

"The Ice Princess will turn me into a mersicle if I'm not. Maybe this time I'll actually show up early; it'll blow her mind." Em sat up and began drying herself off.

"I'm coming in around eight; want to meet on break?"

"Love to," Em said, grinning. "Thanks."

"No problem."

* * *

Spotting the mermaid exhibit, Em walked faster. It looked empty, and she grinned: had she actually beaten Azure to practice? The look on her face would be classic. Reaching the plastic cave that hid the mermaids' locker room, Em realized she wasn't in uniform, again, but shrugged it off. Early was early.

As Em opened her locker, she heard soft splashes and voices. One was Azure's, the other an unfamiliar girl.

". . . Older mermaids had jewelry. The lockets, the jewel pendants, and the moonrings," the other girl was saying. "Except for us. Well, you."

"Don't count yourself out, Olivia," Azure replied. Em paused. Olivia? Wasn't that the girl who'd cheated? She and Azure were friends? "You should have been accepted. You wanted it the most, and you deserved it so much more than Emeraldia."

Em froze, her hand on the locker door.

Olivia snorted. "Oh yeah, the one who's too good for this?"

"That's her. It's gotten worse since she rescued that boy. Every five minutes, it's 'this is pathetic' and 'why do I need to practice this?' and 'I wish I was doing something _important'_—when she even bothers to show up!"

Face burning, Em slammed the locker door. Storming out, she nearly bumped into the third mermaid, Vicki, and mumbled something like an apology. Vicki tried to talk, but Em pushed past her, not hearing over the blood pounding in her ears.

Em found herself diving into a channel leading to the ocean. Whatever: at least superswim was easy. Instinctively, Em shot towards Mako Island. Reaching the underwater entrance, she planted her hand on the scanner set in a nearby rock. After a moment, it blinked green, and the barred door swung open for her.

Surfacing in the Moon Pool, Em turned and leaned against the side. Tilting her head back, she looked up at the jagged volcanic opening overhead. All she could see was bright blue sky.

That was why Azure acted like such a slave driver. Em was never going to be good enough: she was a replacement, she'd ruined the trio. Em slapped the water with her fluke, hard.

Resting her head on the rocks, Em noticed a black-speckled white smudge in the cavern roof, too high up to see clearly. Could she knock it down? Summoning a ball of water, Em threw it. It struck with a boom, splattering against the stone. Gathering the dripping water, Em threw it again. And again. It didn't do much to the rock, but she felt better.

"What are you doing?" The voice startled Em, and she spun around. The water ball plopped into the pool.

An older woman stood in the adjoining tunnel. In spite of her age, she was pretty, Em thought, sort of graceful, and somehow familiar. Oh, yeah—Will's wife, Bella. Em suddenly realized how weird the water-throwing must have looked. She settled for a shrug.

Walking inside, Bella sat beside the pool, a little stiff with age. Her long, white-blonde hair fell over one shoulder.

"You're Em, right?" Bella asked.

"Yeah. How did you get in here, I thought only mermaids had free access—oh, right," Em said, remembering that Bella was an ex-mermaid or something. Stupider and stupider.

"I just decided to stop by and look around again," Bella said, glancing around the cavern and back at Em. "Will told me you and the other girls were supposed to practice today."

"Something came up. They cancelled," Em didn't look at her.

"Cancelled? Why?"

"What business is it of yours, anyway?" Em asked, glaring at her now.

"Will's told me about you, but even if he hadn't, I can see something's not right. You can tell me about it, I can keep a secret," Bella said, with a wry smile. Right, she'd had a tail before mermaids went public; she'd had to keep a lot of secrets.

"I . . . I thought I'd be able to concentrate better if I practiced alone today."

"Why?"

"Just found out I'm not wanted—by Azure, anyway." Em stopped and looked down. Her hair clung to her neck and back in dark, seaweedy strands. "To her, I'm just the girl who stole her best friend's place."

"I know the feeling: I was a replacement too," Bella said, after a moment. "It can be pretty awkward, and especially at the beginning, I felt like an outsider. But we worked it out."

Em folded her arms, resting her chin on them. "I'm not so sure we will. We're not you."

Thoughtfully, Bella looked Em up and down. The daylight reflecting off the water cast rippling shapes across her, silhouetting her on the far wall.

"Can I ask you something?" She asked at last.

Em shrugged. "Whatever."

"Why did you want to become a mermaid at all?"

Em had to think. Surprisingly, she realized she'd never really put the answer into words. It had always been a lot of different things floating around in her mind. She started going through them. Bella waited patiently.

"I want to use these powers to help people," Em said at last. "Do something important with them. That's why I want to go into the rescue mers."

"You couldn't have done anything important as a human?"

Em gave her an irritated look, propping herself up on her elbows. "If you don't like my answer, what's yours?"

"You aren't going to like it," Bella said.

Em threw up her hands. "Try me."

"Don't say I didn't warn you. What you want is to get attention for doing something important. I've watched you training with Will; that's why you go back and forth between being a hardworking student and dragging your feet. If you don't think it's important, you don't try. That's why you're being so selfish now."

Em shot up, looking at her in bewilderment. "What?"

"You could be using this time to learn to use your powers or coming up with ways to use your training for rescue. Instead you whine about how stupid it is and you try to get out of it. You're not thinking about how your attitude's affecting your team—which is important in _any_ group, especially emergencies—and you're hiding from your problems. If you really wanted to help people just to help them, you'd be willing to look stupid to do it. Wanting attention isn't a bad thing, but don't pretend it's something it isn't. You want to learn to use your powers for good? Start small. Make an audience happy. Cooperate with the other mermaids."

Em felt like she'd been punched in the stomach.

Bella spoke again, more gently. "I'm sorry, that came out harsher than I meant. Just . . . think about it, okay?"

Em slid underwater. Was she really doing this for attention? She wanted to be in the rescue mers, she didn't want attention, she wanted to save lives. But . . . Bella was right. A bad attitude could be catastrophic in an emergency team. She wasn't in one, but they might see her now and think otherwise—wait. She wanted to fix her attitude in case they paid her attention?

Em stopped and surfaced in the tunnel. It was just high enough for her head to clear the water. She punched the rock; the damp smack echoed faintly. The more she thought about it, the more right Bella sounded—and the less she liked it. All the skipped practices, all the complaining, all the times she'd been mad at Azure for pushing her to work harder, had been her just screwing up.

"Do I really want to help people?" Em asked aloud.

She hadn't saved Morgan because she wanted praise. Actually, she hadn't even been really thinking when she did it. Plus she hadn't been teaching him to swim for attention. On some level, she did just like saving people—it felt like she was doing something valuable. Unlike doing tricks a dolphin could pull off.

Okay, so when she wasn't actively saving someone, she wanted attention. Maybe she should be more careful about how she made the other mermaids feel, care what they thought about her? That, and very likely at least someone connected to the rescue mers would see her perform someday. She'd already made a pretty bad impression on Azure at least: that conversation she'd overheard proved it. How could she fix that?

That conversation.

Oh.

Oh!

That could work.

Turning, Em swam back into the pool. She needed to check something—and try out her idea. Bella stood by the far wall. At the sound of Em returning, she turned around.

"What time is it?" Em asked, catching the submerged step in the Moon Pool.

Bella checked. "Almost nine."

"There goes practice," Em muttered. "Hey, can I ask a favor?"

"Sure. What is it?"

Em drew a ball of water out of the pool. It hovered above her hand. "Harden this for me?"

Looking a little confused, Bella came closer, and gestured. With a faint hum, the ball shrank slightly, hardening. Turning, Em hurled it up at the roof. It struck the whitish rock with a crack, and it fell, shattering on the floor of the cave.

* * *

Running up to the practice pool, Em slumped against the railing, panting. Walking Vicky out of the locker room, Vicky stopped up short. Olivia was nowhere to be seen, but Azure's singing voice carried from inside the lockers. She always sang in the dryers, when she thought nobody could hear her.

"Em! Where were you?" Vicky asked.

Em was still out of breath. The blow dryers shut off, and a second later, Azure pushed past Vicky. Looking Em up and down, the blonde folded her arms, her expression unreadable.

"I'm sorry," Em said, finally catching her breath. "I heard you and Olivia talking and I ran off."

"I don't blame you," Azure replied, startling Em. "I shouldn't have talked that way about you behind your back. You complain constantly and act like you're too good for this job, but I apologize for saying so."

Em let out an incredulous little laugh. "You call that an apology?"

"If I apologize, that's an apology."

Em almost turned around and left then and there. However, she felt a hand on her elbow, and looked down to see Vicky.

"She's trying," the other mermaid said, in a low voice. Well, the Ice Princess probably couldn't melt all at once.

"Y-you're right. I've been pretty obnoxious," Em admitted, forcing the words out. "I'm sorry for that, too."

Azure quirked an eyebrow. "Who are you and what have you done with Emeraldia?"

"Let's just say I got the talk I needed, and don't call me Emeraldia. Please," she added. Digging in her pocket, Em continued, "I heard you and Olivia talking about mermaid jewelry, and it gave me an idea. I was already too late for practice, so I took care of this."

Em pulled out four necklaces with dark, gleaming pendants: deep red, dark brown, and two black, twisted in silvery wire and dangling from silver chains. Azure's eyes widened, and even Vicki looked surprised.

"They're obsidian, from the Moon Pool—apparently this kind is called Apache tears, for some reason."

"Four?" Azure asked, looking from them to Em.

"One's for Olivia. I figured you could give it to her the next time you see her." Azure stared. Feeling a little awkward, Em held out the necklaces. "Um, you know her, which one would she like?"

"Think you might be overcompensating on the niceness?" Vicki asked, as Azure took the brown necklace and one of the blacks. She snagged the red one.

"I've got a lot to make up for. Plus this project turned out really cool," Em added, unhooking the catch on the final black one and flipping it around. She met Azure's eye. "I'm serious. I want to do this right."

"Good. Prove it," Azure replied.

Ice princess all over. No, stop thinking like that, Em told herself. She finally clasped the necklace shut and turned it around.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a practice to make up," she said. Azure smiled at that.

* * *

Like the previous chapter, this was written for a school assignment. Unlike the previous chapter, this is the result of 10 drafts, one reason it's been almost two months between uploads.


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